11.05.2007

Better road safety thanks to the traffic information service developed by ICT Turku Oy
Drivers to receive information on hazards occurring on their routes while in transit

A traffic information service has been developed under the leadership of ICT Turku Oy which sends up-to-the-minute information to drivers’ mobile phones about driving conditions, accidents, traffic jams and roadworks en route. Drivers are also provided with a suggestion for a safer option, and while progressing along this route, too, corresponding up-to-the-date information is supplied. This service making road users aware of obstacles to the free flow of traffic is internationally uncommon.

Drivers can now receive real-time information on safe routes via their mobile phones. High resolution image (149 Kb) Photo: ICT Turku Oy

The prototype of the service developed by ICT Turku, Destia, AffectoGenimapi and TeliaSonera utilises Destia’s constantly updated traffic warnings and the worldwide TeleAtlas maps. The service can be accessed on modern mobile phones, or, for example, on a portable computer.  Here the driver requests an up-to-date map of his route with road conditions, accidents, traffic jams and roadworks information superimposed. The service also provides a proposal for another, safer route.

On starting his journey the driver’s simple GPS provides up-to-date information on the vehicle’s location to the traffic service program operating in the mobile device. This then retrieves up-to-date map and traffic lane information at intervals of 5 – 10 minutes for the remaining part of the route.

With the traffic information service developed the driver’s mobile device is supplied with the most essential information specifically for him from the vast basic atlas database. The service arranges observational data for the driver on obstacles to progress and traffic jams and, for example, supplies information on the likelihood of a sudden deterioration in driving conditions.

The prototype of the traffic information service facilitates the commercialisation of the traffic warning system designed and implemented for the driver, and a guiding service for lighter vehicles could be developed on the basis of it. The traffic service system has been tested on the Turku-Helsinki motorway, and the work was part of an EU-funded research and development project coordinated by TeleAtlas. In another part of the work Motorola and Fiat were be among those developing a comparable traffic information services which was tested in Turin.

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